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8 ways to keep your Twitter followers

As you probably know, Twitter can be a powerful PR tool for your company.

The primary goal, of course, is to get as many targeted people to follow you as possible. That way, not only will you have plenty of “fans,” but you’ll also have people sharing your content.

While it makes perfect sense to try to acquire as many followers as possible, it’s shortsighted to focus solely on this task. Retting them to click follow is only the first step. Once you’ve hooked them, you have to take special care to keep them.

So what can you do to keep your followers?

Here are eights ways to increase the odds that your followers become loyal.

Tweet often … but not too often.

As with all other things in life, moderation is key and timing is everything. You need to find a healthy balance when it comes to how often you tweet. You want to stay active, yet you don’t want to overdo it.

Here’s a tip: Try a service like TweetDeck to schedule your daily tweets in the morning.

Share content relevant to your industry.

If you sell tires, you should probably stick to tweets about automobiles. More than likely, customers are following you for useful information in this category. They probably don’t care much for your views on political candidates or healthcare. In other words, think about what your target market expects from you and give it to them.

Be concise to make it easier to retweet.

The idea is to facilitate the sharing process. If your tweets use up the character limit, your followers will have to manually shorten your words to retweet them. This will likely be too annoying for many people, which means they’ll stop sharing what you have to say. Instead, keep your tweets to about 110-120 characters. That way they have room to add their own comments

Think before you tweet.

Twitter can make or break you. One wrong word and you might hurt your brand. So before you say anything at all, ask yourself, “Is it wise to say this to the entire world?”

Talk to your followers.

Social media is all about engaging one another in conversation. So make it happen. Talk to your followers. Tweet questions. Look at what they are saying and reply every now and then. Doing so will make you more likable and more approachable.

Inject a little personality.

No one wants to follow someone who is boring. Liven it up. Building a brand requires a bit of personality. Ley yourself shine through in your tweets so you seem more human.

Comment on your retweets.

Too often people just click “retweet” on a bunch of links and think they’re doing a good job keeping up with their Twitter account. Wrong. Make sure you add a comment, no matter how brief, to introduce the links you’re retweeting.

Say thanks.

Finally, when people follow you, let them know you care. In other words, send them a direct message, say thanks, and introduce yourself. And if you send an automated message, for the love of God, don’t let it read like one.

Mickie Kennedy is the CEO and founder of eReleases and blogs at PR Fuel, where a version of this article first appeared.